Defence challenges police in Hale murder trial

Peterborough This Week

(LINDSAY) Not unexpectedly, the lawyer representing a man accused of murdering his estranged wife is suggesting police conducted a less-than-stellar investigation four years ago.
And, in what is arguably one of the worst incidents Kawartha Lakes Police Service has handled, the officer coordinating the case defended her actions in the aftermath of the shooting of Yvonne Leroux.
Tom Balka is the defence counsel for Jack Hale, 60 of Oshawa on charges of first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of an indictable offence. Mr. Hale was charged after Ms Leroux was shot and killed at Riverwood Trailer Park near Lindsay on Sept. 18, 2008.
Det/Const. Janette Drew was on the stand for much of Friday (Nov. 9). The file coordinator for the case, she testified that police recovered four guns in a search of Mr. Hale’s Oshawa home.
Mr. Hale’s brother, Jim, who lived in Lindsay at the time provided police with a key to the house.
Court heard police found a gun case with a trigger lock inside a garment bag in a closet in Mr. Hale’s bedroom. The house was divided into living quarters for Mr. Hale’s mother, Beatrice at the front, and Mr. Hale lived in an addition he had built onto the rear of the residence.
Police found four long guns, including a .22-calibre rifle, an assault rifle that appeared inoperable and two more long guns in an attic that was accessed through a door in the ceiling in a closet in Ms Hale’s bedroom. Two of the rifles were missing the bolts necessary to load ammunition into the chamber, court heard.
Two small keys were found on Ms Hale’s kitchen table, one of which opened the trigger lock.
The officers also seized paperwork relating to the firearms and computer equipment.
On Mr. Balka’s cross examination, Det/Const. Drew would not be drawn into a debate about the operability of the firearms, sticking to her testimony of what she found during the search and where.
She testified that when OPP arrested Mr. Hale and brought him to Lindsay police headquarters, he was booked and police used a standard form to list his personal property. However, court heard, he had a large number of items on his person, including about $400 in cash that he directed be given to his brother, Jim, who later received it.
But, Mr. Balka went for the jugular when Det/Const. Drew admitted Mr. Hale’s property remained unattended in the room for three days. She said she was unaware that had happened until the preliminary hearing. When Mr. Balka suggested it could have been accessed by anyone coming into the room, including other people under arrest, the officer said the room had not been used in that time. If it had, she said, the officer coming in would have noticed the property and secured it.
Procedure dictates that two officers are present when counting cash taken from a person under arrest, but, Det/Const. Drew said she did not remain in the room after the property had been inventoried.
“I had a lot on the go that day,” court heard. She said no one told her Mr. Hale’s personal effects sat on a desk in the room for three days until she learned what happened at the preliminary hearing.
Mr. Hale sat at the defence table smiling as Mr. Balka questioned why Det/Const. Drew and another officer reviewed their notes about the shooting, suggesting that was “not a good idea” when the officers were potential witnesses in the case.
But, Det/Const. Drew held firm, saying as the file coordinator for the case there was nothing unethical about her actions. She appeared offended at any suggestion of impropriety. She said she simply reviewed her notes and the other officer’s.
“Nothing changed. He had his and I had mine.”
On redirect, the officer told Crown prosecutor Rebecca Griffin the two officers were reviewing their notes at the same time; “not reading each other’s” and said the notes did not influence her testimony.
Under the Crown’s examination-in-chief, the detective in charge of the case, Det/Const. Corey McIntyre, said he had several contacts with Mr. Hale after his arrest, and the accused did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“His demeanor changed very little,” the officer said.
It was two days, court heard, before Det/Const. McIntrye went to the crime scene on Sept. 20, 2008. He said the forensic officers “were wrapping up” and while he was allowed inside the trailer, he “was asked to take precautions.” The officer said he looked around and left after a few minutes, returning about an 90 minutes later with Det/Const. Drew to try and find the spent shotgun shell outside the trailer.
“We looked in the bushes, a woodpile, everywhere we could think of, but, no luck,” Det/Const. McIntyre said, adding he was not aware the shell had been found until about 4:30 p.m. That, he told court, is when he saw it lying on the step in the entrance from the sunroom into the trailer.
“I didn’t touch it,” he said.
He also testified he was the officer who helped Det/Const. Drew conduct the search at the Hale house.
The officer told the court that on Sept. 28, 2008, he, Det/Const. Drew and Crown attorney Jennifer Broderick visited the trailer.
Almost two years later, on Aug. 20, 2010 the Crown ordered a warrant to seize the trailer for trajectory tests. Because police had released it long before, it had been moved off the lot to a storage compound at Riverwood.
Det/Const. McIntyre also testified that his investigation also included “plotting on a map” the distances between the Hale residence, the car rental agency, the trailer park, and he also conducted an examination of Mr. Hale’s cell phone records, but admitted he could not tell if any incoming or outgoing calls had been deleted.
The trial will break for a week and resume on Nov. 19.